Cadiz Cortes: Shaping Spain’s 1812 Constitution
The Cortes of Cadiz and the 1812 Constitution
Las Cortes de Cádiz
The Bayonne Abdications created a vacuum of authority in occupied Spain. Although the Bourbons had been ordered to obey the new King Joseph I, many Spaniards refused. To fill that void and organize spontaneous uprisings against the French, Provincial Boards were organized to assume sovereignty. The Provincial Boards felt from the outset the need for coordination. Thus, the Central Board was established that, in the absence of the legitimate king, assumed all powers and established itself as the supreme governing body. The result of this new situation was that the Central Board (born in Aranjuez, chaired by white flowers) convened a meeting of the Cortes in Cadiz, an act that clearly began the revolutionary process.
In January 1810, the Board handed over power to a Regency, which did not paralyze the Cortes. The call for sessions of parliament began in September 1810 and soon two groups of deputies faced each other:
- Renovators or Jovellanistas: Those who wanted to give a new function to the Cortes.
- Liberals: Supporters of revolutionary reforms, based on the principles of the French Revolution. It was later divided between moderates and progressives.
- Absolutists: Supporters of the *ancien régime* (absolute monarchy, stratified society, mercantilist economy).
The Liberal majority began the first bourgeois liberal revolution in Spain, with two objectives:
- Adopt reforms that ended the structures of the Old Régime.
- Approve a constitution that changed the country’s political regime.
These were the major reforms adopted by the Court of Cadiz:
- Freedom of the press.
- Abolition of the *señorial* system.
- Deletion of the Inquisition.
- Abolition of the Guilds.
- Confiscation of some church property.
The 1812 Constitution: Adopted
Adopted on March 19, 1812, and popularly known as “La Pepa”, it is one of the great liberal texts of history and was very famous in its time. Agustín Argüelles, Diego Muñoz Pérez de Castro Torrero are the leading figures in its elaboration.
These are the main features of the Constitution:
- National Sovereignty.
- Division of Powers:
- Legislative branch: unicameral Cortes
- Judiciary: Courts
- Executive branch: King, but with important limitations: Your orders must be validated by the signature of the Minister concerned. It may dissolve the Cortes.
- Temporary veto suspension for two years after this decision of the Parliament becomes law.
- He appoints the ministers, but they must be countersigned by the Cortes (“double trust”).
- New right-representation.
- Indirect universal male suffrage in fourth grade (all men over 25 years, who chose some commissioners who in turn elected the deputies).
- Equality of citizens before the law. This represented the end of privileges for estates.
- It omits any reference to territories with privileges; *foral* schemes in the Basque provinces and Navarre are not repealed explicitly.
- Recognition of individual rights.
- Catholicism is the only religious denomination allowed.
They also took some reforms such as:
- Political reform: Only accept Ferdinand VII as King and the monarchy is constitutional or Spanish parliamentarian.
- Social reforms: All are equal before the law, the lordships are abolished, it is prohibited to use words that imply servitude, and citizen is used as a synonym for equality.
- Economic reforms: Freedom of prices, wages and hours, the *Mesta* begins to decline, and the obligation to belong to a guild is abolished.
- Institutional reforms: The province appears as a territorial and political unity, and a political figure or governor appears (representative of the government in the provinces).